Reissue of an indispensable

Among the latest releases in the series of 13 boxes provided by EMI to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the death of Otto Klemperer, it stands out as an essential for its artistic quality, but it should be noted that this issue is duplication with EMI Classics box appeared in late 2011 (see also comments in this edition, including supplements for some symphony each individually).

Otto Klemperer did much to defend the music of Gustav Mahler, at a time when it was not so at all. In 1905 Klemperer met for the first time Gustav Mahler, during a rehearsal of the 2nd Symphony. It is thanks to the composer he then gets his first two conductor positions (first in Prague in 1907 and Hamburg in 1910). Klemperer will not cease his life to defend the work of Mahler, in the best way possible.

This box regroups the leg studio realized in the sixties, at the Kingsway Hall in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra (and Chorus), recordings that have punctuated the history of Mahler disc:
- Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection", captured in November 1961 and March 1962 with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Hilde Rossl-Majdan.
- Symphony No. 4 in G major, captured in April 1961, still with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. In addition, 3-Rückert lieder and two extracts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, picked up in 1964 with a sumptuous Christa Ludwig.
- Symphony No. 7 in E minor, captured in 1968, which found pleasure in the previous cabinet.
- Symphony No. 9 in D minor, captured the 15 to 24 February 1967.
- Das Lied von der Erde, captured in February 1964 (at Kingsway Hall, then in November 1964 and July 1966 at the Abbey Road Studio), with Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich. THE big unparalleled reference since in a new remastering he seems.

In broad tempos often (but not always) and a design primarily monumental Mahler Klemperer fit models for their tonal balance, their solemn architecture, their rigor and severity, crippled in both intensity and poetry, born of structural objectivity, not the sentimental exaltation. The Philharmonia and the soloists are all superb, and concourrent successive successes of these visions Mahlerian both indispensable and yet unconventional (can think in a unique 7th).

To use a formula for the 9th symphony in my review of the 2011 edition: the Mahler Klemperer is made of marble and granite, like something out of nothing, to dive there after having traveled a road carved for giants. Mahler then this is a must.